Last week, we blogged about Boulevard R, a site that offers CFP-prepared financial plans for $49. At the time, we expressed some skepticism that the firm could supply such a service for so little money. With that in mind, we did a little more digging to try to figure out exactly how the service works. We spoke with Boulevard R’s CEO over the phone, and he was more than happy to walk us through the process. 

Just as a refresher, all visitors to the site can answer a set of questions and see an interactive results page for free. Once users sign up and choose the full Roadmap ($49), they are asked an additional set of in-depth questions. These take approximately 20 minutes to complete and are then combined with the answers to the free questions to produce the plan.

The firm’s website led us to believe a CFP actually prepares each and every Roadmap financial plan. According to the CEO, what actually happens is Boulevard R generates the financial plan based on the user’s answers and a CFP then reviews the plan (rather than actually writing it up from scratch). Currently, customers must wait a couple of weeks to receive the finished product, although the company hopes to cut that time down to less than a week in the future.

This additional information was helpful and gave us a better understanding of how the company can offer this financial planning service for only $49. While the tool may not generate results as quickly as some free online planners we’ve used, the results are more comprehensive and this should hopefully justify the wait. And while customers won’t receive the personal attention that a fee-based financial planner can provide, the cost is several hundred - if not several thousand - dollars less, making financial planning affordable to a much bigger audience.